U.S. – CPSC Approves ASTM F963-17 Safety Standard for Toys in Direct Final Rule

Vol. 1010 | 26 Jan 2018

ASTM International notified the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on the publication of ASTM F963-17 standard on September 1, 2017. After review of the revised standard, the CPSC published a Direct Final Rule (DFR) on December 4, 2017, amending 16 CFR 1250 and adopting ASTM F963-17 as the mandatory safety standard, with the exception to the revision of the test method for sound-producing toys exempting push/pull toys from the A-weighted maximum sound pressure level requirement, as the CPSC believes this reduces the effectiveness of the standard.

The majority of revisions to the ASTM F963-17 standard have been editorial with a significant change to the requirements for projectile toys with stored energy, which was revised to clarify that the Kinetic energy density (KED) requirement only applies to the projectiles that have kinetic energy greater than 0.08 Joules (J).

The DFR also updates the existing notice of requirements (NOR) that provides the criteria and process for CPSC acceptance of accreditation of third-party lab for testing for ASTM F963 pursuant to the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA).

The revised ASTM F963-17 standard becomes the mandatory Safety Standard for Toys effective February 28, 2018.

The Final Rule can be reviewed at: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2017-12-04/pdf/2017-26009.pdf

For questions, please contact Dr. Pratik Ichhaporia (pratik.ichhaporia@intertek.com, +1-312-906-7720) or Laxmi Ravikumar (laxmi.ravikumar@intertek.com, +1-630-209-9265).